Wednesday, July 2, 2008
President of Mongolia Nambaryn Enkhbayar has declared a state of emergency in the capital after a post-election political rally descended into violence.
President Nambaryn Enkhbayar
Police were blocking major arteries into the capital Wednesday after the president suspended most television broadcasts and imposed an overnight curfew in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, said William Infante, Mongolia director for The Asia Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to bolster democratic institutions.
The demonstrators were upset about the prospect of a victory in last Sunday's parliamentary elections by the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, Infante said.
"I think Mongolians are shocked. This was completely unexpected," he said. "The sentiment is one of profound disappointment."
Five people were killed, several hundred were hurt and another few hundred were detained, Infante cited local news reports as saying. State television in Mongolia showed the prime minister viewing bodies in a morgue, he added. Video Watch as protesters mob the ruling party headquarters »
The U.S. Embassy said Wednesday it was "deeply concerned about the violence" that prompted the state of emergency.
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Enkhbayar acted after several thousand demonstrators at an opposition political rally broke into and burned the offices of another party, said Infante, who said he saw the smoke and flames from his nearby office.
The violence was unusual for Mongolia, which made the transition from communism to democracy in the early 1990s. Four previous parliamentary elections were free and fair, and they passed without incident, Infante said.
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